Search form

You are here

Cracks in Big Coal’s Empire

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
-Gandhi

Don Blankenship’s
empire is crumbling, rapidly. Mountaintop removal coal mining may well
be on it’s way out. The money’s drying up. Appalachia is rising in
Washington D.C. And we’re seeing some VERY interesting developments on
Wall Street and in Washington.

The New York Times reported yesterday
(A1 in the print edition) that some of the biggest Wall Street banks
(Citi, Bank of America, Chase, Wells Fargo, Morgan Stanley and Credit
Suisse) were moving away from the financing of mountaintop removal and
other environmental disasters. After years of work NGOs like RAN,
Appalachian groups and grassroots activists, have shifted the banking
sector away from mountaintop removal.

The four biggest banks in the U.S. –Bank of America, Citi, Wells
Fargo and Chase– have all also stopped funding “the poster child of
mountaintop removal” Massey Energy. Massey’s PR aces, on the game as
always, have tried to brush off the story about the money drying up, but
we all know it’s for real. In the Times article, Massey’s Roger S.
Hendriksen, the vice president for investor relations response was ““While
some banks no longer provide financing for companies conducting surface
mining, there are many who will. We have and will continue to replace
their services with alternate bank providers with little difficulty.”

Appalachia Rising is a mass mobilization with a mass civil disobedience planned on September 27 in Washington D.C.

“I’d rather not travel to Washington DC. I’d rather not break the
law in non-violent civil disobedience. Frankly, I’d like to work in the
garden in my retirement, but when 300 million gallons of toxic coal
sludge from a Massey Energy impoundment flooded Martin County, my home, I
found myself in a fight for the life of my land and community, and with
those stakes, you don’t have a choice. The time for action is now!” said Mickey McCoy resident and former mayor of Inez, in Martin County, K.Y.

App Rising’s organizing is going REALLY well
and we’re expecting a strong turnout. I’ll be there with a whole bunch
of friends and we’re going to make powerful statement about Washington
allowing mountaintop removal to continue to exist.